In December’s award-winning article, Joanna Small of KSPR News used sociology to understand why people are less likely to intervene to assist someone in need when there are plenty of other people around who could also help. Sociologists call this the Bystander Effect, and due to Joanna Small’s great use of this concept to explain current events, TSP is happy to award her article, written up as a citing by board member Erin Hoekstra, the media award for December.

As we’ve said before, the choice of each month’s TSP Media Award is neither scientific nor exhaustive, but we do work hard to winnow our favorite nominees.  And, while we don’t have the deep pocketbooks to offer enormous trophies or cash prizes, we hope our informal award offers encouragement for journalists and social scientists to keep up the important work of bringing academic knowledge to the broader public.